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June is a month of abundance.All the trees have leafed out, my vegetable garden is starting to feel like it can feed my household with more than just hearty green…

And the Capitol Hill weeds are out in full force

With the weather being nice, I tend to go on more walks where I am willing to linger, instead of begrudgingly trudging through rainy dog walks. When I give in to the lingering and take time to poke about I notice things.

One of the things I value most about paying attention to nature, or anything else, is that I think it tends to make us more curious and open minded. The more I look, the more I notice, and the more questions I ask. This lens helps me be a better human, both as a steward and community member.

Recently I’ve come to terms with the fact that I had preconceived notions about certain plants I see on a regular basis. For a long time I’d thought they were introduced weeds, invasive or at best, mild annoyances. The native vs non-native discussion is a slippery slope and anyone who has read Pikes/Pines has heard it. It’s a nuanced topic that takes an open mind.

Recently though, I truly have come to value native plants more than introduced ones. Not because I think introduced plants are bad, nor that they don’t have things to offer, often that’s why they are here in the first place. My increasing focus on native plants is driven by the fact that they provide more to our local ecosystems. While an ornamental plant from another place might be beautiful and may offer nectar to a pollinator, they often don’t have multitrophic benefits. A native plant can provide nectar for pollinators, be a host for browsing moth and butterfly caterpillars, offer fruit or/or seed to birds, and shelter overwintering insects (and still be beautiful and well adapted to our landscape). We should all know that the Hill is a jumbled mess of plants and animals from near and far, and that’s not going to change, but that doesn’t mean I want to throw up my hands and give up on the native species still present.

Capitol Hill still has plenty of native species to enjoy and steward, including as it turns out, some plants I long believed were from far away. Does that make them better? Maybe, maybe not. Are they now not weeds? That’s also up for debate. But I do find the process of incorporating new information and letting go of past misconceptions useful, and I hope you will too. The following plants are native to the Pacific Northwest and I’ll freely admit I didn’t realize this until very recently.

Fringed Willowherb (Epilobium ciliatum)

Fringed Willowherb (Epilobium ciliatum). PC: Brendan McGarry

Most of my life I’ve weeded this unassuming plant out of garden beds. I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t even consider what this plant was called until maybe six years ago. Somewhere deep in my brain I’d been taught it was a weed (reminder here that philosophically, a weed is just a plant considered out of place by humans), and that it should go. There was a good reason for that – the genus Epilobium are excellent at spreading. They grow happily in disturbed sites, are self-compatible (meaning they don’t need another plant for pollination of their flowers and to reproduce), and have wispy seeds that spread everywhere on the lightest of breezes. So if you have a garden you wield some sort of control over, they might not be your pick, and even native plant purists might not choose to let them remain because they can take up space. (A commonality with all the plants on this list is that they have become invasive outside their range.)

You might be a touch more familiar with the larger native cousin of Fringed Willowherb, Fireweed (Chamaenerion angustifolium). Both of these plants have pretty pink flowers, but Fringed Willowherb is exceedingly subdued in comparison to the vivacity of Fireweed. Willowherb’s single rose colored flowers are produced atop a slender stem and can honestly be hard to discern because they are quite small.

Slender, unassuming, willowherb. PC: Brendan McGarry

Native bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies all enjoy Fringed Willowherb nectar and several species of moths use it as a host plant. I have a larger than average garden space, so I can be generous and share even my more maintained spaces with this slender beauty. And hey, it’s a “free” plant that takes zero effort and offers much.

Cleavers (Gallium aparine)

Cleavers (Gallium aparine). PC: Brendan McGarry

My dog loves to eat Sticky Weed aka Stickywilly aka Goose Grass aka Catchweed Bedstraw aka Grip Grass (the latter sounds like something from a Migos song, IYKYK). Every spring I find myself being pulled towards clumps of this velcro covered plant so the dog can chow down. Cleavers is ok for dogs to eat, I checked, and it’s also been used by people for a variety of things including but not limited to: eaten raw or steamed, steeped to make a diuretic tea, to curdle milk in making cheese, to create a red dye, seeds roasted to make a coffee substitute (it’s in the coffee family), and even to stuff mattresses (hence Bedstraw). The multitude of uses and a circumboreal range explains why we have so many names for it in the English language alone.

I feel a bit validated in not realizing this plant was native, because it appears botanists and ecologists still debate where it’s truly native. Because it grows so widely, tends to take over in annual profusions, and could be considered an annoyance with its velcro-like foliage, I think a lot of people just assumed it wasn’t native or labeled it a weed and therefore lesser than. Cleavers does travel well, breaking off whole stems and sticking seeds to unsuspecting passersby with the same tiny hooks that cover the stems and leaves. These help the plant sprawl about anything nearby as it reaches for sunlight.

While I don’t necessarily want Cleavers covering everything in my garden, I do try to maintain calm and appreciate the plant for an ephemeral annoyance. Besides, Cleavers has actually introduced me to other native species in the same genus because I have stopped to actually pay attention and notice subtle differences. Because Cleavers are annuals you can catch them before they go to seed and they often won’t be back (or better yet get those seeds to an unkempt corner and let them do their thing – nothing says anticapitalism like using a wild, abundant plant as a homespun resource.)

Pineapple Weed (Matricaria discoidea)

Pineapple Weed (Matricaria discoidea). PC: Brendan McGarry

This annual springs up in my driveway every year and was ardently weeded from my parent’s garden paths every spring. As with willowherb, I just assumed it wasn’t native. And I didn’t realize my mistake until this spring when I was staring at this little frilly little member of the aster family and pondered where it was actually from. As it turns out, right where I was standing.

Pineapple Weed not only grows well in my driveway, it thrives in poor, compacted soils. Unfortunately, this means it’s been spread well outside its native range and does so rapidly because cars and people are very good at inadvertently spreading plants. (If you know a few introduced plants and travel up a forest service road this summer to go on a hike, take a look around – you’ll notice that the roads are lined in them, even in the deepest depths of the forest where it is unlikely a bird or the wind carried a seed.) Even if the unassuming Pineapple Weed makes good tea and can be eaten raw, it doesn’t excuse it’s spread across much of Europe where it is not native. However, unlike so many plants and animals with poorly chosen common names, Pineapple Weed is apt; the crushed leaves smell quite a bit like pineapples.

Self-heal (Prunella vulgaris)

Self-heal (Prunella vulgaris). PC: Brendan McGarry

As with cleavers, Prunella vulgaris has a lot of common names (heal-all and blue curls are my favorites among several I have seen), similarly because it is native all around the Northern Hemisphere. (Here on the Hill we have both an introduced population of the plant from Eurasia as well as our own native one.) As the name implies, humans have a long history of using this plant as a panacea, and even if clinical trials don’t demonstrate the efficacy of its use as an herbal remedy, it does make a rather nice tea that I have used for an upset stomach.

Self-heal is in the mint family and like many mints, you need to be cautious about where you let it roam. I am very relaxed about letting this low growing, purple flowered plant take over gravel paths and my lawn because I know it supports pollinators, can handle foot traffic, and will dominate other less desirable plants. And it’s definitely the most traditionally showy of the cadre presented here. Multiple hooded flowers grow from upright stalks that weirdly remind me of the speaker banks that hang on either side of stages. If I had to pick a plant from this list to actively grow, Self-heal would definitely be my choice (not that any of these four need help if they are already growing nearby).

Self-heal sidling in next to introduced species in my lawn. These are ones that have been mowed and they now crouch low. PC: Brendan McGarry

You can take my word for it, or go on your own journey about why native plants are important (here’s a good place to start). But I think my overall point here is that I made an assumption, I learned more, and then with new information I changed my mind. That’s a thought process I wish I saw a little more of these days. Taking time to learn more from members of your community and in turn advocating for their right to exist, plant or otherwise, will always be a good thing to do.

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